Graduating UMass docs get first assignments

There were a lot of happy faces at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Friday, and many of them will stay right there.

It was Match Day, the day when graduating medical students find out where they will do their residency. At noon, all of this year's graduating medical students nationwide opened their envelopes and learned their placement.

Timothy P. Gleeson, 37, of Worcester, is among the 22 students staying at UMass, his first choice. A native of Worcester and a 1993 graduate of Burncoat High School, Mr. Gleeson is studying emergency medicine.

He came to medicine after deciding biotechnology involved too much laboratory time, trying a stint in publishing, and then getting inspired by volunteer work with the Peace Corps in Tanzania.

He saw the difference access to medical care there made for people living with HIV or AIDS. "That's what really sealed the deal for me," he said.

His wife Amanda, 21-month-old daughter Evie and his parents, Maurice and Kathleen, were all at the medical school's new Albert Sherman Center Friday for the ceremony.

"Today, I don't really see it as an individual sort of thing," Mr. Gleeson said, noting that his parents, wife, professors, patients and mentors all contributed to where he is now. "It's a group."

Chancellor Michael F. Collins echoed that in his remarks. While many people were agog at the building, he said the day was about the students and those who helped them. "It is very much an affair of great support," he said.

Staying in Central Massachusetts was especially important for several students who have started families of their own. Jennifer Evansmith, who lives in Shrewsbury with her husband Ben and 11-month–old son, will stay at UMass, her first choice, as will Anna McMahan of Natick, who attended the ceremony with her wife Keirsten Lawton and their two young sons.

Approximately half of the 123-member class will stay in Massachusetts, and even some of those who are leaving hope to return.

Leominster native Seth Curtis and Megan Weeks of Easton, who will get married in Rhode Island in May, are headed to Swedish Medical Center in Seattle for residencies in family medicine.

They got to know each other in anatomy class and during a prison clerkship, or as Ms. Weeks put it, "among dead bodies and incarcerated people."

While they're excited to have matched together and to be going to Seattle, they expect to return.

"Three short years, and we'll be back," Mr. Curtis said. They won't graduate until June, but they already think they would like to return and teach at the medical school.

Contact Jacqueline Reis via email at jreis@telegram.com and follow her on Twitter @JackieReisTG.